The component would have 2 pads. One for the inner part that looks like an arrow (or rattle snake tail) and the other for the outer surrounding part (or the serpents mouth). Two pads are needed due to the fact that this is a two leaded "component".



Joseph, it is completely possible to create single pad components. These are often used for test points and mounting holes among other things.

Satish, I cannot actually help you figure out the nuances of using Altium to create specialty pad shapes. I have done it in PADS PowerPCB. There it is possible to create pads that have either standard round, square, rectangular or oval types. It is also possible to draw in arbitrary shaped copper areas that become part of the pad because they would overlap with a standard pad assigned to the component pin or the copper piece is assigned to the package pins. It is quite common to have to make specialty pads like this for devices which require irregular pad shapes. Here is a link to a web page article at my web site that shows a special pad shape being used for a spark gap.

Special Sparkgap Pads

Satish, I did a simple search in Google with "irregular pad design in Altium Designer" and came up with a few links. One of them is this Altium Wiki page.. Look in the index on the right for Creating PCB Component Footprints. They talk about the subject of irregular pads toward the end of the section. Do be aware of the need to create silkscreen and paste mask openings manually if you use non standard pad elements.

Michael Karas